Chloë Ashby

She’s leaving home: Breakdown, by Cathy Sweeney, reviewed

One ordinary November day in Dublin, without forethought or planning, a woman walks out on her husband and two teenage children and never comes back

[Getty Images] 
issue 13 January 2024

The narrator of Cathy Sweeney’s first novel has finally cracked. I say ‘finally’ because there have been signs: drinking alone; disliking her daughter, or at least her type; having an affair with her friend’s son; opening a separate bank account in her maiden name when her mother died. But in the beginning we don’t know any of this.

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